iTunes of Poetry
PoetrySpeaks.com was created by Sourcebooks, Inc., the publishers of three New York Times bestsellers, Poetry Speaks, Poetry Speaks to Children, and Hip Hop Speaks to Children. This beta version of the site has just launched after five years of development work and an estimated $250,000 of investment from Sourcebooks.
As you can guess, with that kind of investment, there has to be revenue from users, thus the site is modeled as an “iTunes for poetry.” With some free samples to entice users, audio and text poems will go for 99 cents, and video versions $1.99. Future plans include partnering with retailers to sell books, CDs, ebooks, DVDs, as well as promotion and sales for tickets to poetry slams, readings, and online performances.
